Celia Lisset Alvarez's Blog, page 3

Feeling the Love at Fringe

As part of the Vintage Fringe feature, the folks over at Fringe are re-featuring my poem, "Blackbirds," and posting an accompanying interview. I can't tell you what a thrill this is! It's one thing to have someone publish your poem--that's already a great seal of approval. But to come back to it? To do it again? Yay.



In the accompanying interview, they've also given me the chance to talk about the poem's composition, as well as how it interacts with one of my favorite forms, the sestina. Fri...

Why You Should—and Shouldn’t—Go to College

Summer’s here, and I’ve been spending time getting to some much-postponed home improvement projects, which is why this is my first post in over a month. It’s okay; I’ve decided to just let the summer happen, and blog or blog not as the mood strikes me. Tis the season to be lazy, one of the many perks of being a part-time frustrated academic.



Tis also graduation season, and as I see all those pics of proudly smiling grads making the rounds online, I can’t help but wonder, as Carrie Bradshaw m...

The Winners of the 2012 Big Poetry Giveaway

Drumroll, please:





Stephen S. Mills has won a copy of my Finishing Line chapbook, The Stones. Congratulations, Stephen, hope you like it!





Tara Mae Mulroy has won a copy of Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros. Congratulations!



Many thanks to all who participated, and especially to Kelli Russell Agodon at The Book of Kells, for coordinating this fun event. Come back next April for the 2013 giveaway, and keep reading poetry!

Foxy Lady Jeannine Hall Gailey Talks about She Returns to the Floating World

Jeannine Hall Gailey is the Seattle-area author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011) which is an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist for 2012. Her upcoming collaborative book of poetry and art, Unexplained Fevers, is forthcoming from Kitsune Books in 2013. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in journals...

Couplets Blog Tour: Week Four Roundup

126 posts! Start at the top, and work your way down:

22 April 2012: 3 Questions for Heather Kamins (at Miriam Sagan's Miriam's Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond)



22 April 2012: Inquiring Minds and Other Clichés — David W. Landrum (at Christine Klocek-Lim's November Sky Poetry).



22 April 2012: Couplets: a multi-author poetry blog tour — Angie Werren (at T.A. Smith/Yousei Hime's Shiteki Na Usagi)



22 April 2012: Yousei Hime (at Angie Werren's feathers: micropoetry (and tinyprose))



23 April...

Couplets Blog Tour: On Poetry and Politics

My last stop on the Couplets Blog Tour is Ching-In Chen's Sunslick Starfish, where I've written about one of my favorite subjects: poetry and politics. Check out this post and other posts from the Couplets Blog Tour at the Upper Rubber Boot Books website. My thanks one more time to Ching-In Chen, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Pat Valdata, Anne Higgins, and, of course, Joanne Merriam for this wonderful tour--what a great way to celebrate National Poetry Month!

Couplets Blog Tour: Opening the Dream Cabinet with Guest Ann Fisher-Wirth

My guest today is Ann Fisher-Wirth, whose fourth book of poems, Dream Cabinet , has just been published by Wings Press. Her other books of poems are Carta Marina, Blue Window, and Five Terraces.  Also she has published three chapbooks: The Trinket Poems, Walking Wu-Wei’s Scroll, and Slide Shows.  She is coediting Ecopoetry: A Contemporary American Anthology, forthcoming from Trinity University Press in 2013.  Her poems appear widely and have received numerous awards, includ...

Couplets Blog Tour: Week Two

Wonderful new posts all around this week, if I do say so myself! Happy reading:



8 April 2012: Fiona Robyn (at Angie Werren's feathers: micropoetry (and tinyprose))
9 April 2012: Guest Post: Mary Alexandra Agner (at The Wordsmith's Forge: The Writing & Other Projects of Elizabeth Barrette)
9 April 2012: it requires practice, a lot of it (Christine Klocek-Lim at Joanne Merriam
9 April 2012: National Poetry Month: Guest Post #6, Alegria Imperial . . . (at Margaret Dornaus' Haiku-doodle)
9...

Couplets Blog Tour: "Why Getting Small Details Right Matters," by Pat Valdata

My thanks today to my guest, Pat Valdata, for this post. Pat is both a poet and a novelist, and, when I told her this blog was geared primarily toward beginning writers, she immediately came up with the idea of sharing her thoughts on verisimilitude, the art of using details to create the illusion of reality. Read Pat's full bio and my review of her latest book, Inherent Vice , in my last post, here.

Why Getting Small Details Right Matters

by Pat ValdataI am reading a book in which one...

Couplets Blog Tour: Pat Valdata's Inherent Vice

My guest this week is Pat Valdata, author of Inherent Vice . Valdata received an MFA in writing from Goddard College. Inherent Vice (Pecan Grove Press) is her newest book, a full-length poetry collection published in March 2011. Her earlier chapbook, Looking for Bivalve (2002), was a finalist in Pecan Grove's chapbook competition. Valdata has twice received Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist grants for her poetry. She has also written two novels: Crosswind (Wind Canyon Books, 1997...